U.S. citizenship plays a major role in an immigrants' assimilation experience. Within today’s heated debate over the Dream Act, it seems probable that both opposing parties recognize that legal status largely contributes to an immigrant’s socioeconomic or political trajectory. In addition to influencing whether or not an immigrant becomes integrated into a culture, citizenship can act as an oppressive signifier that divides American residents into a hegemonic and subaltern culture. Consequently, US legal documentation draws the link between the assimilation process and the dominant culture development. Historically, there exist three theories that one commonly utilizes to analyze assimilation: straight line assimilation theory, segmented assimilation theory, and selective assimilation theory. After applying these theories to recent immigration issues, one will realize that the meaning of citizenship either becomes unattainable, arbitrary, or oppressive during the assimilation process.
Perhaps the most evident expression of how legal status determines whether or not an immigrant succeeds in assimilating into America is the socioeconomic privileges of citizenship. Because citizenship acts as the symbolic key to structural assimilation (i.e. integration into mainstream culture), almost half of the “Migration citatory formation is made up of large numbers of poorly educated, unskilled workers . . . in the United States [are] without proper documentation” (Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, 2000, p. 13). In advertently, it seems that citizenship limits an undocumented immigrant’s access to resources, and services. That is, the very social construct designed to secure equal rights, protection, and prosperity among all US residents in actuality stigmatizes incoming residents. In fact, one could argue that the system of legal status lends itself to silencing the voice of immigrants under hegemony of U.S. citizens. Probably one of the most profound examples of how U.S. citizenship leads to the creation of a hegemonic class over immigrants is the citizens' exclusive right to vote. Also, perhaps a direr example of how undocumented immigrants can fall into a subaltern culture is their vulnerability to exploitation and marginalization within and without the workforce. Despite the cultural innovations or technological advances that immigrants have contributed to American society, immigrants are still treated as subalterns. Suarez-Orozco (2000) describes a common mindset of an immigrant who wishes to establish him/herself in America: “The direction or aim of the process was said to be “structural assimilation” and “acculturation” into what was implicitly or explicitly the prize at immigration’s finish line: the middleclass, white, Protestant, European American framework of the dominant society” (p. 8). No matter how immigrants have positively changed the landscape of America, the narrative of "illegal" immigrants still seems to be suppressed by the white male narrative. The effect is that non-citizen immigrants who desire to assimilate into American culture can enter into a state of denial. Undocumented immigrants can forget that “Immigration generates change . . . . [T]he immigration process inevitably changes the members of the dominant culture” (Suarez-Orozco, 2000 p. 22). Citizenship marks a person as an American; however, it also implies that the immigrant has entered into identity with an ever fluctuating hegemonic culture. The power play between citizens and undocumented immigrants also challenges the presuppositions of U.S. citizenship.
Often immigrants enter America with false expectations of attaining citizenship and prosperity that lead to either a static or segmented assimilation process. Suarez-Orozco (2000) observes that “The dominant narratives of immigrant assimilation were structured by . . . . the ‘clean break’ assumption, the ‘homogeneity’ assumption, and the ‘progress’ assumption” (p. 9). Immigrants commonly possess misconceptions about American hospitality, culture, and benefits that arise out of the Eurocentric metanarrative of America. The act of migrating to the US symbolizes a new life that frequently reflecgs the romantisized American dream. Non-Americans usually perceive US migratory waves as Diasporas rather than a fluctuation between constant flows and trickles. A great portion of immigrants hold to the misinformed view that America often experiences seasonal periods of mass migrations that predictably end in a process of assimilation into white Protestant American culture. Immigrants strongly believe that upward segmented assimilation into the pristine Anglo Saxon middles is inevitable. That is, true US citizenship implicitly signifies and demands non-debatable integration into the white culture. Failure to “properly” assimilate creates instability within the “homogenous” framework or triggers undesirable acculturation. “Unprogressive” straight or segmented assimilation poses a threat to American cultural heritage, which thrives on immigration, and development. Suarez-Orozco (2000) disagrees with such an unfounded statement when he asserts that “Beyond the argument that maintaining the expressive elements of culture is symbolically important and strategic from the point of view of social cohesion . . . . the tenets of unilineal assimilation are no longer relevant” (p. 23). Stagnant cultural segmented assimilation no longer hinders America because cultural or social capital (e.g. foreign values, linguistic skills, and consciousness) provide power to America in a global economy. Thus, Suarez-Orozco would perhaps suggest that US citizenship should represent legal participation in one of the world’s greatest melting pots. In addition, immigrants would perhaps be more successful in earning legal status if they treated US citizenship as a way to increase America’s international cultural capital rather than as a ticket to a pre-scripted American culture. This does not eliminate the need of assimilation, but it might call for one to redefine citizenship.
In our highly technological world, citizenship in an acculturate society like America becomes more of a requisite rather than a loaded identity. As Suarez-Orozco (2000) notes “Because of a new ease of mass transportation and new communication technologies, immigration is no longer structured by around the ‘sharp break’ with the country of origin that once characterized the transoceanic experience” (p. 11). Today’s mass transportation and telecommunication systems almost imposes an arbitrary meaning upon citizenship because borders become thinner. In fact, American citizenship stands as a perfect example of how borders can become simulations of reality because the US is almost a microcosm of the global community. Consequently, a significant amount of foreign American residents follow a path of selective assimilation in order to avoid the restrictive concept of pure assimilation. Also, selective assimilation usually appeals to immigrants because it allows immigrants to creatively explore their American identity. Similar to how the pan-ethnic category of an “‘Hispanic,’ the precursor to the more aucourant term Latino, [which] has no precise meaning regarding racial or national origin (Suarez-Orozco, 2000, p. 14), the term American has also become vague. US citizenship might represent freedom or other constitutional rights because being American only refers to a geographical status. Even the idea of pure American assimilation raises conceptual problematic issues because it either presupposes or creates American homogeneity.
American citizenship can often be divisive, delusional, or a simulation of reality. The concept of citizenship creates a subaltern community despite the fact that the enforcement of citizenship attempts to aid the assimilation process. Interestingly enough, becoming an American is almost synonymous to becoming a global citizen. Immigration increases America’s capacity and capital to participate in global dialogue and exchange. America is a product of all nations in one form or another. Consequently, America should not hesitate to offer all people an equal right to freedom, liberty, and happiness. US citizenship in itself proves that citizenship is a social construct, and continues to ever challenge the concept of assimilation.
References
Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2000). Everything that you ever wanted to know about
assimilation but were afraid to ask. The MIT Press, 129(4), the end of
tolerance: engaging in differences, 1-30.
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